*TS Rewards will replace the Diamond Card system used by Turning Stone Resort Casino since it opened 20 years ago.*The reward system will allow guests to earn points on purchases at all On...

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HOW IT WORKS

*TS Rewards will replace the Diamond Card system used by Turning Stone Resort Casino since it opened 20 years ago.

*The reward system will allow guests to earn points on purchases at all Oneida Nation Enterprise businesses, which can be redeemed at those businesses as well.

* TS Reward Cards can be picked up at the TS Rewards Desk, and customers will be asked to set up a PIN. Those who receive a TS Rewards card in the mail will have a default PIN of their birthday month and year.

The new machines will take cash, so customers no longer will have to wait in line to load money onto their Diamond Card.

How to play:

* Insert your new TS Reward Card into the card slot to earn points as you play.

* Insert cash: $1, $5, $20, $50 and $100 bills are accepted.

* Select your bet level and play.

* When you're done at the machine and have a credit balance, press the cash out button. If you don't cash out, the credits stay on the slot machine.

* A game credit voucher will print from the machine, which can be redeemed for cash at the Main Cage or a redemption kiosk, or inserted into another machine to continue playing.

Source: Turning Stone Resort Casino.

Steven Perry has been going to Turning Stone Resort Casino for 10 years, and makes the trip from Syracuse two or three times a month.

The most the 54-year-old maintenance worker has won playing table games is $400. At the slots? A couple of hundred dollars.

Perry likes the idea of getting to play for multi-million dollar jackpot pools when the Oneida Indian Nation casino debuts a $15 million upgrade next week with new slot machines that will accept cash.

And he doesn’t think he’s alone.

“That’s gonna be great, for sure,” said Perry, who worked the slots Tuesday with his wife, his daughter-in-law and her mother. “Anytime you can win more money, it encourages people to come out.”

Multi-million-dollar jackpots haven’t been an option in the past, with the highest payout at the slots at around $200,000, said Dan Jones, director of casino promotions.

The Oneida’s multi-million investment in 1,000 new slot machines that take cash instead of the pre-loaded Diamond Cards will connect Turning Stone with about 12 other casinos across the country, bringing some jackpots upwards of $2 million by March 6 when the machines are all in place.

Some of the new Konami brand machines will have jackpots in excess of $1 million, and several others will have minimum $500,000 jackpots at all times. About 1,000 machines will be replaced, and more than 1,000 others will be upgraded.

“This is a pretty different stratosphere for us,” Jones said.

The casino’s slot machine revenue for this year is projected to be $200 million, and the state and Oneida and Madison counties will share a portion of that under a deal reached between the Oneidas and the state and counties. The state will receive 25 percent of the revenue, and the counties each will get 25 percent of the state’s take.

The cash-play machines have been used at casinos for about 20 years, said David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

“They’re very common,” he said.

They’re already in use at Vernon Downs Casino Hotel, which should not see a major impact from the upgrades at Turning Stone, said Jeff Gural, Vernon Downs’ principal owner.

“That’s the way most casinos operate,” he said.

Turning Stone also is making changes to its customer loyalty program, which previously was tied to the Diamond cards. The new TS Rewards program will award points on purchases at all Oneida Nation businesses, including golf courses, restaurants and SavOn stores, in addition to gaming.

The gaming experience will be “completely different,” Jones said.

“It’s a little more self-serve — they can go straight to a game,” he said. “One of the issues we’ve always had is with an account-based system, in order to add money to your account you had to go and do that at a remote location, where now they’re going to be able to do that right at their machines.”

Page 2 of 2 - And when players are finished at a machine and have a credit balance, they can print a ticket to be redeemed at the Main Cage or a redemption kiosk, or move on to another machine.

Perry is looking forward to an experience more similar to playing the slots in Atlantic City.